Sunday Ramble: Why I get mad at stories

I went to bed early last night from a fatigue attack. Weather shifts, again. That being the case, I woke up sore, groggy, and cranky. Which means this is a poor time to reflect on others because I am always more judgmental when I'm like this. So, I figure, why not be self-judgmental? And anyway, I need a good topic for a Sunday ramble that isn't likely to end with me sending a few more people away pissed off. In theory, anyway. In practice, I'll probably still piss someone off. Also, this is a long, long ramble. As in, "Fuck me, will this bitch ever shut up?" long. (When I die, I'll shut up. But I even talk in my sleep.)

Anywho, let me first explain that I've always been excitable and overly emotional about fiction. Both my parents are well aware of my tendency to throw a book and scream or to start screaming at the TV because something someone said or did rubbed me the wrong way. And my rants were always for the same reason, that "real people don't act like that." And it's true, and it's always been true my whole life. Fiction in our modern world is not to me a reflection of real people, or of our society, or our real moral values. It is a projection of what we wish we were if were weren't flawed human beings. And that angers me, that our entertainment is so often about denial of our true selves in favor of this projection of a false moral positive. To me, it's self-deprecation and unrealistic moral lecturing disguising itself as entertainment. It's brow beating the viewer at the same time that it pretends to entertain. It's insulting my intelligence while at the same time begging for my continued attention.

That's what pissed me off as a kid. But as a writer I've become exceedingly picky, much more so than I ever was during my childhood. I don't think it's because the stories are worse today. The stories today have a sameness to the entertainment of my childhood, and while the quality of special effects have improved for movies and TV, the writing is about the same. And while the novel writers are a mixed bag, the writing standard for film was always crap. It's rare for these people to come up with a good idea, and even when they have a good idea, the studio executives find ways to ruin the premise.

Please, recall, these executives were the guys who took the Human Torch out of the Fantastic Four cartoon and replaced him with a robot because they thought kids were stupid and might try to set themselves on fire if they saw a flaming man on TV. (This despite the character being in comics a few DECADES without any such outcome occurring.)

The writing in novels is more hit or miss than TV, where quality writing is a rare exception. The mixed quality of novels has never changed, and never will even if traditional publishers keel over. Some writers just work harder than others, and it shows in the polish of their released work. Some writers earn the statement, "A bad story from ___ is still better than a good story from ____," with both writers in the fields "earning" their places in their respective blank fields solely by rite of the reader's interpretation.

I've established that long before I wanted to write, I was a picky reader. Note I did not say "discerning of quality," or "connoisseur of finer fiction." Nope, I'm just being picky. I wanted fantasy stories that still felt "real" because the characters sold me their world through their reactions to it. But a lot of writing has flat characters in great worlds, and in those cases, I don't give a fuck. I'm sorry for that. I know the idea of the world is great, but if I can't get into the main character, I don't want to explore their world.

Lots of readers are like this, I'm sure, but we have VASTLY different criteria about what breaks the rules. I don't want a morally good character by default. I just want a character that doesn't feel flat. So if you've got a "thief with a heart of gold," fuck you, I'm outtie. If you've got a drug addict who cleans up and makes good just because, fuck you, I'm outtie. If you've got an alcoholic divorced cop who only does the right thing, fuck you, and *hawk*, you get an extra loogie of shame. *ptui*

And it's nothing personal to you writers. I may still like you as a person, and I might regularly visit your blog. I paid for your book, and getting into it, I find your mechanical writing skills fine. But I find your lack of thought in your characters to be nothing short of pathetic. And some of the people whose character writing I hate the most are also the people selling the most copies.

The character tropes that most readers find likable are instead offensive to me for their fakeness. And lots of characters that I like turn other people off. But for me, I don't buy characters who do the right thing just because their moral compass is always pointing to good. I need better motivation than "I'm a cop, damn it. It's what I do." My answer to that kind of hard boiled cop character is "Fuck you, pig." Then I put the book down. (Or tune out the TV. Cause hubby still loves him some cop shows.)

I hate lots of character types, so many that I could probably create my own mini version of that TV Tropes site. (A site I refuse to visit, knowing that it is a dangerous time suck. Part of my motivation in being angry with these character types is that I'm taking time away from my writing to pick up someone else's art. I'm losing time having my attention divided like this, so I want something out of that time investment that doesn't end up "And the day was saved again, thanks to people who couldn't possibly exist in real life."

And yes, I get why it's popular. People want lies that comfort them and make life's jagged edges seem less sharp and imposing. They want total escapism, with no acceptance of reality's teeth. But even when I was reading for total escapism, I still expected to see better characters than some cardboard cutouts who spout the same moral claptrap before committing yet another act of "justified murder." Bad guys lose and burn in hell, and good guys win and the day is saved. And for some of you, that formula is salve for your tortured cubicle-hell souls. For me, it is spitting in my face and saying "If you were a character in this book, the hero would have either killed you or beaten you for information. If you were a character in this book, you'd be a one-paragraph bit character described as scum not fit for the reader's time."

Perception and perspective is everything. People who've never dealt with bad cops don't get why I hate the stereotypical "good cop" in fiction who is somehow justified by the writers in hitting criminals "because he has to get rough in this dark world." Police brutality does not win points with me. It makes me tune out the TV show or put down the book.

People who get into these stories don't understand my explosions about unrealistic characters or unbelievable plot points. They ask me, "Why can't you be less judgmental and just enjoy a great story?" Because to me, these are not great stories. They're reruns of lousy stories from the last two decades.

But every once in a while, I run across something that gets me all hot and bothered because the characters are GREAT. They have flaws and quirks, and no one is good or bad; they just live. The narrators try less to say who is right or wrong, and they just explain what happened. I LOVE that. And I don't care if the main character is more aligned with good or bad if the story sells me on the idea that he isn't morally righteous in his actions. I don't care if the protagonist is right or not. What I care about is getting inside his head and sorting out why he's making these choices. Some writers get my needs, and they give me the information I want.

And, knowing that other writers can work harder to give me that information, I am even less forgiving of writers who couldn't be bothered to explain their characters better. I know the work CAN be done. I've seen writers so good with their character work that I genuinely weep and say, "Damn, why can't my characters be this real?" I've seen writing skills that humbled me and made me feel vastly inferior. So when I see cheap character work, even if the world building is great, even if the writer is not breaking any grammar rules, I see red. Why? Because they can work harder and make their characters as great as their world-building. That they don't, and that they think these cutout characters are good enough boils my blood. They can try harder, damn it! Other writers do it, and do it well, so why can't I demand the same from these "lesser scribes"?

Lots of writers say, "That's what I'm all about too, making real people." So of course I read whoever steers me down their path with this bait, the promise of more realistic characters. More often then not, indie or pro, they're…I don't want to say they're lying, because they may genuinely believe their writing is breaking molds. I don't want to say they're delusional either, because that's a very divisive word, and it doesn't accurately reflect the mindset of these writers. But usually, what they see as groundbreaking is really just an examination of the same projected values that have been used for a while now. They don't build on the old work, or attempt to break it down. Their cutout characters are just as fake as the characters from previous works. This isn't standing on the shoulders of giants to offer a new variant of their old work. It's standing on the shoulders of hacks and offering photocopies of older lousy characters with new dialogue.

I can't say I'm doing much better as a writer, because a lot of my work over the last two years has been in reaction to something else that I'd read or seen. Whether my reaction is good or bad doesn't really matter. I'm still riffing off of other artists. Even my good stories that reviewers praised as original still had origins from someone else. Zombie Punter was inspired by Brian Keene's Dead Sea. (The villain of that first Zombie Era book, Blaine Kerne, is an anagram of Brian Keene… except for the L… and why did I only notice that now? y_y ANYWHO.) Sandy Morrison and the Pack of Pussies was inspired by the werecats in Kept by Zoe Winters. Adopting a Sex Doll was inspired by a news article about Japanese "companion dolls" coupled with my memory hiccuping and recalling the Bradbury film The Electric Grandmother. Penny for Your Debts is my protest of the idea of a "hidden" magic school in Harry Potter and presents a very dark and morally twisted take on magic mentors. Bran of Greenwood and the Scary Fairy Princess is my protest of The Hunger Games. Peter the Wolf was inspired by Twilight. Yes, really. You can even tell because I use the same "preview prologue" that hints at one thing happening, when in fact something vastly different happens in the story. Peter reads Twilight at Alice's prompting, and later—under the influence of a lot of drugs—Peter comments, "Edward, I love you."

I could go on, but my point is, I'm not so original. That's not what causes me to explode at bad writing, the lack of originality. It's bad characters. It's the acceptance by so many writers to eschew any sense of real life from their characters in favor of a projection of a false moral value because "that's where the money is." And I need to be clear that I know lots of writers DON'T do this. I haven't gotten around to reading everyone to sort out which people are real artists and which are hacks yet, and I'm not claiming that this is how everyone does it. I'm saying, these are the popular character tropes that drive me bonkers and send me away from a lot of mainstream books.

Nevertheless, I have read a lot of fiction that makes me explode, and that's why every new book is a potential landmine. Will this one burn me up really bad in an early blast, or will I just catch a light burn from the occasional mild flare up? Will I toss another book and feel cheated for buying it, or will I close the back cover and find myself wanting more from the same story? Will I feel like my time was wasted and could have been better spent writing stories, or will I feel diminished as a writer and wish I could write that good?

I don't suppose that makes me so different from other writers, or other readers for that matter. We all have this criteria for what is good or bad in fiction. But my perspective as a member of a fringe society often taints my view, so for instance, I hate demon and vampire hunter stories. I would much rather read about vampires than I would about self-righteous humans who murder endangered species so they can protect our seven billion strong populations from "evil." (Human evil is fine, but if you're a genuine blood sucker, fuck you, you gotta die.) I seriously doubt anyone would want to read it, but I'd love to see a book where cows rose up and developed "human hunters" using a network of chicken spies to fight against the evils of Ronald McDonald and the Dread Burger King. It would serve as the counter-protest to all those vampire hunter books by parodying everything vampire hunters claim to believe as their "core morals." The cows and chickens hold the same moral values and vampire hunters, but when it's our food rebelling against us, we'd still feel totally justified in putting down that rebellions fast. Bitches gotta eat, right?

And don't look at me like that. I've been to a steakhouse recently and had both cow and chicken on the same plate, WHILE listening to John Morrissey singing Meat is Murder. I'm that much of a bitch. And like I said, bitches gotta eat.

Mainstream fiction doesn't help me fit in when the few times one of my people show up, we're usually either depicted as a caricature or a mockery. Everything I believe in and hold dear, the mainstream hero sees as "perversion." So with just a few sentences, a writer can lose me even as they're gaining the approval of millions of other people by validating the harmful stereotypes the readers already believe in.

So, getting back to the why I get mad, I think that I get so overly emotional about my character complaints because writers are still using the same formulas I saw when I was a teen. I was mad back then, but now it's even worse because there's still no incentive for writers to abandon theses formulas. I saw other people complaining about these things for years, just like me, but no one in the writing world has listened to us because the money of other buyers speaks louder. So we have the same stories with the same fake values, over, and over, and over. This is why I stopped reading mystery fiction, and why I stopped reading thrillers and suspense. Because I can always count on the author to beat me about the head and shoulders with their sense of literary morals.

Not their real morals, mind you. This is the projection of black and white morals they only wished they had. Or maybe they don't, and they just think this is what people will buy, and they believe something else entirely. I don't know. But to me, the stories they sell are a poor reflection of real people. I want them to stop making those kinds of phony characters, but can't convince them to do so because the formulas are still so very, very profitable. Readers like being lied to. No, they fucking LOVE it. Any attempt to introduce elements of the awkward truth will make them complain about having their preferred lies challenged. If the formula doesn't give them total escapism, then there must be something wrong with the story, not with the viewer.

I like being lied to in fiction too, but I'm picky and ask, "Can't you make this con a little more convincing for me?" I keep "forgetting" (read: ignoring) there's a million other readers who didn't ask, and who bought the con job completely. So why I'm really mad is that the con isn't set up for someone smarter like me. It's designed for the lowest common denominator, and my dissatisfaction with the con is seen as "unfortunate, but probably unavoidable."

Indeed, this is true, and you can't please everyone. And, what pleases me in fiction often irritates other people. Which is why I don't think it's such a big deal that I can't hit the big time. The values I hold are not en vogue, and the stories I write do not validate mainstream values. So, no million dollars in sales for me.

Which makes me wonder if part of the bitterness is resentment that these stories should have such widespread success, and yet I can't even eke out a niche market for any of my titles. But I don't feel bitter at the writers. They submitted their stories to an average of 20-40 places, and they've all done work on promoting their stuff. Even the writers who I think of as hacks are still out there busting their asses for their successes. So I'm not really upset at them for their work, even if I don't agree with the values they project.

I'm upset with a society that accepts on all fronts that they are being lied to, and yet show no desire for anything better. I'm upset with the apathy that accepts lousier TV show premises just because "nothing better is on." I'm upset with the acceptance of cop show morality as a real life value. I'm upset with the wholesale acceptance of a thousand harmful stereotypes about fringe groups in society. And most of all, I'm upset because there will never be a large-scale desire to change these writing trends.

We live in the "good enough" society, where whatever we're given as entertainment is good enough. Even if the standards go lower and we should be upset, people still shrug and say "good enough." So, another part of my anger is helpless raging against a society that is still quite comfortable with othering through the use of "Us VS Them" black and white values in their fiction. Perhaps I wouldn't have all this rage if I were on the inside looking out. But being on the outside, I've also looked through history from the same position, and I've found society only willing to change values when forced to do so by the most extreme circumstances. I do not have those kinds of resources available, nor the desire to take over the world. No, not even the literary world. It's too big, and I wouldn't know what to do with it if I had it.

So I write books that no one wants but that do satisfy my need for variety, and when I get tired of writing and want something to clear my head, I venture out of my writing cubby hole to examine my pile of landmines. Is it a book written by someone I know? Is it likely to end a friendship if I hate the book? Cause that adds another layer of repulsiveness to picking up some of the titles in my pile. I like the writers I hang with, and if I don't like their writing, I don't want it to be the end of our friendship. Yet I've lost a LOT of friends because I had to say, "I'm sorry, but I hated your book."

And some of you might say, "Well duh, Zoe. You're supposed to lie to friends about their books." To that I say, No, you're not. That you've accepted the idea of lying to friends as being better than the truth shows yet again how you are part of the good enough society. It's your casual acceptance of lies in every facet of your life as being better than the truth because they're more convenient or somehow less painful. (Provided no one admits they're lying or gets busted.) A lot of people feel that I should lie to them and make them think I'm a similar kind of person to them if I want them to read my stuff. I should not tell the truth bluntly, because the truth is too divisive. Lies allow for real conformity in communities, and that makes them better. I totally disagree with this. Which makes me about as popular as pet rocks, but eh popularity is highly overrated.

So, to recap, I get mad reading or watching these kinds of stories because I'm wasting my time and my money on something that insults me as a person, or because it insults my intelligence. I get mad because there is a widespread acceptance of these values, even though we also acknowledge how unrealistic the writing formulas are. I get mad because these projected values will never be contested by people inside the mainstream bubble. Lastly, I get mad because nothing I write will crack into the market and convince others to abandon those projected values. I will never convince anyone to boycott bad writing. (and by that, I mean writing on my blog, not my fiction. I know my fiction isn't bestseller material. I accept that. I'm just saying I won't blog any article that sets readers on fire and makes them demand new writing standards. They like the standard as is. So as a minority member in a pool of happy readers, I lose. That's what I'm saying.)

And, in conclusion, this is why rum and pot are my best friends. Because someone with as many reasons to be this pissy about fiction needs sedatives so that other people won't strangle the living shit out of me.